


In The Place Where There Is No Darkness

by sadsparties



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadsparties/pseuds/sadsparties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A barricade is not only made of paving stones, but also of ideas and woes. Enjolras is the first to fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Place Where There Is No Darkness

They had watched him fall.

Courfeyrac and he had watched him fall, and there was nothing they could do. In the chaos of the barricade, one thing was of prime importance: Keep yourself alive. The very notion that they were there was a sacrifice in itself. They should, are, and had been ready for anything. Or so Combeferre thought. But when he saw Enjolras fall, less than a few seconds before Grantaire had pushed him away from the barrage of bullets that hit both of them, Combeferre was far from prepared.

Close range shot, flint lock judging from the smoke, possible punctured lungs, broken ribs, bullet lodged two inches from the heart. Irretrievable. No, Combeferre was not prepared.

He was not prepared when Enjolras suddenly racked forward, his body all but limp, and flew, flew from that blinding cloud of smoke and down to the bottom of the barricade, spread-eagled and magnificent until he hit the muddied ground hard. Courfeyrac was screaming.

Both of them were beside him in an instant.

Somewhere, in the confines of his already muddled mind, he heard Joly pronounce Grantaire dead. There was nothing more to be said.

"What do I do, Combeferre?" Courfeyrac implored him. "What do I do!"

What could they do? More blood spewed from the point of entry. Punctured lungs, broken ribs, bullet lodged two inches from the heart, irretrievable. The colour had drained from Enjolras’s face. Even his hair, which always burned bright, became an ethereal white. By rights, Enjolras should be dead.

But he was not, Combeferre knew. Not yet. Not when his eyes had opened, those piercing blue eyes that had turned into a cloudy mist. In that frail body, there was still life, and Combeferre struggled to keep it there for as long as he could. With a hand, he pressed against Enjolras’s bloody shirt, and with another, he raised him upright, just enough to keep the blood from choking him. Enjolras nestled against him. It was a familiar pose that they had repeated countless times in the comforts of the night, and Combeferre knew that this may well be the last.

"Stay with me now." It was the first thing he had uttered, and for the first time, since their long friendship, Enjolras followed without a word. He nodded once and tried to keep his eyes on Combeferre’s. Blood spewed from his mouth.

Slowly, painfully, Enjolras raised his bloody hand and cupped Combeferre’s cheek. There was panic in his eyes, Combeferre knew, but Enjolras kept his gaze at him until he could project a semblance of calmness. They looked at each other as if there was nothing else in the world. In that frenzied roar that was the barricade, they were alone.

He wished he could have said something. Anything. A word of comfort, a reassurance, a farewell, but like most of the time that they had been together, their final moments were spent in silence.

Enjolras’s hand smudged blood on his cheek, and it left a bright, red stain as it dragged against his waistcoat.

Somewhere, Courfeyrac was weeping.

Enjolras was dead. The limp form in front of him was no longer Enjolras. He tried to imagine him as one of the corpses in the dissection room. Would he have opened him with a scalpel? Would he have the gall to slit that face that was not of this earth? No. This body before him was not just a corpse. The barricade behind him was no longer a grave. It was an altar.

Combeferre lay Enjolras’s head on the holy pavement, took his face one last time, and planted a kiss on his lips. It was a kiss of greeting, of farewell, and of promise. He found the nearest carbine and proceeded to climb the barricade.

"What are you doing?" Courfeyrac screamed from below. "Combeferre, what are you doing?"

Combeferre stared at him from above, his face as unreadable as the chaos obstructed by smoke. “An altar must have a sacrifice.”

Later, when his body racked from the bayonets, when he felt his blood mix with the smudge on his chest, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace. His life slowly left him, and as he took his final breath, he saw the sight that Enjolras had last seen, that of the France bathed in light.

**Author's Note:**

> Title was taken from Orwell’s "1984", because I am a sucker for despair.  
> “‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,’ he had said. Winston did not know what it meant, only that in some way or another it would come true. ”


End file.
